Delilah carefully adjusted her wide brimmed hat in the oppressive summer heat and picked her last meal, a single seville orange. She had always loved citrus, especially the bitter and tart varieties. She ran her fingers over the rough and dimpled skin of the dull colored fruit, savoring the scent of the essential oil wafting from her hands. It had been ages since she had savored the rush of flavor and juice from the first bite, or the burning sensation on her lips from the bitter pith.

It seemed fitting that it’d be her last meal.

Her captors possibly agreed. She glared down at them from the relative safety of the orange tree. They moaned, their broken fingernails digging into the thin bark of the old and twisted orange tree. Secure as ever, the tree just wobbled slightly.

One of them was her brother Marco. He had joined the ranks of the undead not more than hours before. His mode of transformation was more violent than the subtle symptoms brought on by the air borne variety of the illness. His infection had been direct through the bodily fluids. He had been partially eaten. Delilah had accepted their fate weeks before, when the first signs of infection began to become obvious. It didn’t hurt to look at him now. He was done suffering, the intelligent glint that was the human soul had left his eyes the moment he fell from his own tree and snapped his neck. It was a pity all the fruit had been picked. He didn’t have a last meal to savor.

Delilah wiped the sweat from her face and absently wondered how he’d manage to eat her flesh if he lacked an esophagus.

She bit into the bitter fruit without peeling it. Juice ran down her chin as she sucked it for all it was worth. Damned if it wasn’t safe to eat them without washing first, the pesticides wouldn’t really have time to make her ill.

It was good. She felt more alive than she had for as long as she could remember. Dropping the spent fruit into the mob of undead beneath her she stood up in her little crook.

Closing her eyes, she jumped.